Baku & Ming

Baku

Last Saturday we went to Baku (in Azerbaijani it is spelled Baki but the I doesn’t have a dot, making the sound like the y in symbol) for the day with my language group and my LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator). We got to town at about 9 and went straight to McDonalds. That’s right, Big Mac for breakfast! Nothing better! McDonalds is in a square called Fountain Square and it’s where a lot of ex-pats go. There are a lot of Western things around, like fancy clothes stores that are impossible on a Peace Corps budget.

After breakfast we went up to Martyr’s Lane. This is pretty much a huge memorial to everything that’s happened in the last 25 years of Azerbaijan’s history. In 1990, the Russians came into Baku and massacred about 250 people – mostly men who were going to what they thought would be a peaceful meeting with the Russians. They were surprised by the Russian tanks; a few were able to escape. Ayten, my LCF, grew up in Baku and her father had gone to the meeting but was able to make it home that night. There are also very many graves for people who died in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia, when Armenia occupied a very large area of Azerbaijan’s territory in the 1990s. Martyr’s Lane is on top of a hill looking out over the Caspian and Baku’s skyline.

We then went to the Peace Corps office, which is very nice and very air conditioned. After getting the tour, we headed back to Fountain Square for nachos with some current volunteers at Tequila Junction. The nachos were good and the restaurant was full of British ex-pats in the oil industry. It was fun to hear English again!

We then went into Old City, which was built before the 7^th century, maybe even 500 B.C., depending on what source is used. We went into a carpet shop in a cave made using egg yolks as spackle. The shop owner told us all about what to look for when buying a carpet and told us some of the history and common symbols used in Azerbaijani carpets. It was a very interesting experience, but I think the man was a bit disappointed when we turned out not to be rich American tourists. We then saw the Maiden’s Tower and Shirvan Shahs’s Palace. They are both old. Older than America.

I really liked Baku. It was a lot cleaner than Sumgayit. Down in the area by Fountain Square, it has the feel of a European city. There are beautiful buildings and lots of ex-pats. It was great to not have people constantly staring at us, since there are so many European people. We live in a constant fish bowl everywhere else in Azerbaijan, so it’s great to know that there is a place we can go and just blend in… at least for the most part.

Mingachevir

This week we got to visit our permanent site in Mingachevir (pronounced ming etch a veer). It is a great town. It’s very beautiful and green. And CLEAN! We stayed with our host family. They are amazing! Tahir, the father is a retired sports teacher and the mother, Bebe is an art teacher at my school. They have an 11 year old son named Farid, who is very quiet and sweet, so far. Their house is very nice, a lot nicer than where we are now. Our room is nice and airy, with 3 windows that open into their garden full of pomegranate, apple, plum, kiwi and filbert trees.

My school is about five minutes from our house. I walk through the Bazaar to get to school; we’re about a block from the Bazaar. Jesse’s walk is about 25 minutes, but it’s a pleasant walk, he says. There are three other volunteers in our town, two of whom are from our group, AZ5. Nate lives right around the corner from us and Cindy lives in an apartment down closer to the river. Mike, from AZ4 is awesome. We’re so lucky to have an AZ4 site mate to show us the ropes, and Mike is one of our favorites. He and his girlfriend (an American named Kate who is not in PC, but lives in Ganga) had us all over to his apartment for quesadillas and chocolate chip cookies. Good times!

All in all, we are very excited to move to Mingachevir next month. We love the other PCVs going there, the town is great and our living arrangement is pretty darn good.

Photographs: 1. Greta, Bonnie, Barbie, Jen and me. This was when they announced sites for all the volunteers. Our shirts are from a Turkish soap opera. All the kids have these shirts. We also decided to have Crazy Hair Day. Our language group is the best and most fun! 2. McDonalds in Baku. Good stuff. 3. Me and Jesse at Martyrs Lane, Baku in the background. 4. The carpet shop in the cave. 5. Baku around Fountain Square. 6. Sunset on the river in Mingachevir.

Mexicalian In The AZ

As of today, we have less than 25 months left here in Azerbaijan. We swear in on September 12th and begin our service on the 13th. Then we have 24 months in Mingachevir. It’s still hot. It’s been over 100 degrees most days in August, but we are adjusting.
In my last post I wrote that we took our mid-training language tests. I achieved Novice-High, which is what TEFL volunteers need to achieve, so that’s great! I don’t feel like I really have enough language to be dumped at site, but most of the people I’ll work with will have English skills. Jesse got Intermediate-Low which is the next step up from Novice-High. CED volunteers need higher skills so he still has one step to go until he reaches Intermediate-Mid. He’s very good at speaking Azeri and his basic communication skills are amazing. He’s good at miming and talking until he knows he’s understood.






Last Sunday all the Sumgayit Station trainees invited our friends over to Jen’s house where we created a Mexican wonderland! Jesse and I made salsa, Barbie made tortilla chips out of lavash, and we had fantastic bean and chicken burritos. Good stuff. It’s always a lot of fun to get a bunch of us together for something that feels "American." We all live around Sumgayit in smaller communities and we are able to see each other in Sumgayit most days if we want to, but since we’re all doing different things (TEFL, CED, and Youth Development), our schedules don’t always match up. We do get all Sundays off, so that’s a good time to have fun.




This last Sunday we had an Italian feast, again at Jen’s. Jesse and I made a penne casserole, Jen made pesto spaghetti, Bonnie made bowties with vodka sauce, Barbie made garlic bread and Jane brought lettuce from Baku for a salad. Jesse and Tom made SG (super garlic) Chicken – an original Azerbaijan recipe. It’s so nice to relax with Americans every now and then! We’ve also come up with an amazing tradition of having the men do the dishes. I’m pretty sure that this was the first time in the history of Sumgayit Station that men (or even a singular man) have done the dishes while a group of women lounged on a porch. We’re changing things here in Azerbaijan! Maybe if some Azerbaijani men see our men doing the dishes, they will decide to lift a finger in their own kitchens… well… at least we’re planting a seed.




Before the Italian food, we went into Sumgayit with our family. We went with our Nana, host father, his sister, her kids and our niece Maleyka. We had chay (tea) at a café, walked on the beach (I even got my feet wet for the first time… I still can’t believe that I live right next to the Caspian Sea… whoever would have thought I would live here?!?!), got a professional photo taken with the Sea in the background, the kids rode in toy cars and we ate ice cream. We got to the city in a marstruka that a friend of the family’s drives. We even drove it on the beach!! There are always cars and marstrukas on the beach, which still feels a bit weird to this Oregonian.




Keep the emails and comments coming!! It’s so nice to get to the internet café and have things to read from all of our friends and family back home! It really does help us get through this crazy time and it’s so nice to know that we’re still in your thoughts! Real mail is great too!!!









































Photos: 1. Barbie’s chips with our salsa… looks like Emerald Valley Salsa, doesn’t it? 2. Jesse doing the dishes in a typical Sum Station sink. 3. Jesse prepping dishes, Donnie washing, Nick drying, Nate supervising. 4. The proud men with clean dishes. 5. Americans in Azerbaijan… our street. 6. Jesse and Nubar, our niece. She ADORES Jesse. 6. Jesse and Nubar hunting for seashells (the Azeri word for seashell translates to Fish Ear) 7. Jesse, Rovshan and the marstruka at the Sea. 8. Vy, Tom, Jen and her host sister, Bonnie (in the red), me, Jeff and Kelsey at the Italian feast. 9. A cow eating the trash. This is where we take our trash to be burned every few days or weeks. 10. Jesse walking up to our gate. It’s the cement block/ rusty fence to the right of Jesse across the street. 11. Our courtyard. The window that Jesse’s head is blocking is our window. Notice the chickens. 12. Our kitchen. 13. Jesse being silly with the kids. Nubar, Elman and Elshan. Nubar’s bundled up because the temperature dropped to about 90 this evening. 14. Me and Maleyka watching Jesse and the silly kids.
We will add more pictures of our house later!

We are going to.....

Mingechavir!!!

That's right, we found out yesterday that on September 13th, Jesse and I will be moving across the country to Mingechavir! I will be teaching in School #13, where there is said to be an internet room... :) Jesse will be working for Finance for Development, doing micro finance type stuff. We are very excited! There are some other neat people in Mingechavir and some of our good friends close by in Ganga! That's about all we have to report... just same old language classes and sector meetings...

Lovely Sumgayit Station ---->


With our friends Sally
and Jane in Sumgayit
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